Install Open Source VMware Tools on Red Hat Enterprise/CentOS/Scientific Linux 6

VMware now makes a repository available for us to install the VMware tools for a variety of Linux distributions including Red Hat, Scientific, CentOS, and Ubuntu.  In this example I will install VMware tools on a Red Hat Enterprise/CentOS/Scientific Linux 6 guest running on a VMware ESXi 4.1 host.

First import the VMware repository GPG signing public keys:

# rpm --import http://packages.vmware.com/tools/keys/VMWARE-PACKAGING-GPG-DSA-KEY.pub
# rpm --import http://packages.vmware.com/tools/keys/VMWARE-PACKAGING-GPG-RSA-KEY.pub

Now add the VMware repository.  If you’d like you can use the “echo” command below or simply create the file and its contents are listed below it.  There are other packages available in the repository for other Linux distros, architectures, and ESX host versions.  Again I am using the Red Hat Enterprise 6/VMware ESXi 4.1 version.

# echo -e "[vmware-tools]\nname=VMware Tools\nbaseurl=http://packages.vmware.com\
/tools/esx/4.1latest/rhel6/\$basearch\nenabled=1\ngpgcheck=1" > /etc/yum.repos.d\
/vmware-tools.repo

Now we can list the contents of the new repo file:

[root@server1 ~]# cat /etc/yum.repos.d/vmware-tools.repo

Here is what the contents should look like:

[vmware-tools]
name=VMware Tools
baseurl=http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/4.1latest/rhel6/$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

It is now time to run the actual install of VMware tools.  In my case I am installing on a server system without X11 graphical interface so this is the minimum install:

# yum -y install vmware-open-vm-tools-nox

If you are installing on a workstation or server with X11 installed and would like the VMware display adapter and mouse drivers loaded use this command.  The install will be a bit bigger:

# yum -y install vmware-open-vm-tools

You are now up and running with VMware tools!